It Was A Reconnaissance Trip Really

 Yesterday, after returning from my fishing trip, I got a call from a friend I'd not fished with for a while. He suggested a canal neither of us had fished this century. He'd been in the vicinity of the canal and had a look round. He reckoned it looked quite good and there were a few anglers about. Some silvers were been caught but the pike anglers weren't doing too well.

This morning I headed out there with his directions and a thick fog.  By the time I got to where the directions were needed the fog had lifted, but this didn't stop me heading down a dead end road. It wasn't the correct next turn on the right. Back in the right direction I stated to recognise places, but then began to wonder where I was again. Narrow roads with no obvious landmarks. The last instruction was "down to the end of Main Lane, left at the T-Junction down to the parking spot". The problem with this was that Main Lane didn't reach the T-Junction. It veered to the right at a fork in the road. This road turned in to a farm track. A helpful dog walker pointed me in the right direction. Apparently the Parish Council had helpfully put a street sign up at the junction and more than a few people had ended up turning down there instead of continuing down the more obvious left fork.

Eventually I arrived at the parking where there was only one other car, my mates. He was surprised it was empty as yesterday there was half a dozen cars there. A look at the canal didn't inspire me. It looked a bit coloured and bits of weed were drifting along. The plan was simple. I would fish perch size lure and my mate would fish pike sized ones. After two hours with nothing to show but a foul hooked roach we found ourselves back at the cars. After a cuppa we decided to head in the other direction. By now, though, the amount of weed drifting down made fishing near impossible. A natter with a dog walker convinced us that maybe we should give up. He told us there was a lot more coming down from higher up as they were clearing the drainage channels. That's probably why there were no other anglers about.

We had a look at a lower section but it was far too weedy for lures. By now we reckoned a pub lunch was the order of the day. Not the best of sessions, but I now knew where to go for a return session. A few frost would probably help. One annoying thing, though, was the magic disappearing photos on my phone. Only three survived. The rest were not to be seen even scanning with file recovery software. Oh well. We'll try again later.